The French Revolution

13.4.1 From the Revolt of the Privileged to the Estates

General

13.4.1.1 The Revolte Des Privilegies

Louis XVI’s successive ministers were aware that to resolve the economic crisis, it was essential that they thoroughly reform the French tax system, which had been passed down intact since the fifteenth century.

Technically, the privileged classes were right. However, given the desperate plight faced by most of the French during the last third of the eighteenth century, they were playing with fire—especially considering the dangerous precedent set by the American Revolution (which, paradoxically, had been made possible to a great extent by the support France’s Louis XVI had lent the rebels). The oligarchy recklessly and stubbornly opposed the fiscal reform proposed by the king (Sonenscher 1997, 64-103) in a movement which historians have called the “Revolt of the Privileged”.

Resurrecting a mechanism as complex as the Estates General after 165 years of inactivity, was an undertaking fraught with risks. Thus, Louis XVI, who was much more conscious of the situation than the members of the parlements, fiercely opposed what they requested. An acrimonious and fruitless exchange thus began during which the tone of the parlements’ protests became increasingly insolent. Unfortunately for the king, the parlements’ attitude began to win over public opinion (Lucas 2006, 33-50), and the people began to organize protests against the monarchy. There came a point at which even the army expressed its willingness to collaborate with the Nobles of the Robe to stem the increasing anarchy, worsened by the general malaise born of the economic crisis.

13.4.1.2 The Provincial Estates of Vizille and the Prelude to the Revolution (June 1788)

As we already know, the Provincial States had almost disappeared by 1700, because Richelieu and Louis XIV tried to abolish them all. Thus, most provinces had forfeited all right to administrative independence by the eighteenth century, with the exception of four regions: Languedoc, Brittany, Burgundy and Provence. When Louis XVI took the throne, one of his reforming minister’s priorities was to establish an institutional way by which the country could share power with the king (Jones 1995, 139). Calonne (1783-1786), in an attempt to reinstate the nobility’s political power, summoned an Assembly of Notables to approve some

reform measures, including a universal land tax, and in 1787, Lomenie de Brienne had the idea of revitalizing these Provincial States to provide the stimulus that would lead to repairing the worn-out fabric of absolute monarchy (Jones 1995, 139). ^[675]

The political crisis came to a head when Louis XVI, poorly advised by his Justice Minister, Guillaume-Chretien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, decided to abolish the parlements ’ right to enact royal legislation. The announcement was ill timed and only ended up fueling the conflict and tensions, exacerbating the rebel­lion of an entire region, Dauphine (Dauphiny) where the people, rallied by the Parlement of Grenoble, decided in June of 1788, to unilaterally organize (without the governor’s convocation on behalf of the king, as was the legal practice) a meeting of the three estates in the Palace of Vizille. This constituted a clear challenge to the king’s authority, as Dauphine’s old provincial estates had been eliminated in the first half of the seventeenth century by Richelieu. ^[676]

In addition, the meeting in Vizille ended up taking on a revolutionary tone, as the voting was not conducted in accord with tradition, with each estate meeting separately and voting in blocks, with internal, majority polling determining each of the three’s votes.

13.4.2 The Estates General

13.4.2.1 The Convocation

In August of 1788, in light of the state’s virtual bankruptcy and the government’s manifest inability to restore order, the king yielded. After calling for the Estates General to convene on May 1,1789, he replaced Lomenie de Brienne as his Finance Minister with the more popular Jacques Necker.

13.4.2.2 The Patriots vs. the Privileged

The king’s decision did not pacify everyone. Though nearly all agreed that absolute monarchy had to be overturned, there was no unanimity about just how to do this. On the one hand the privileged wanted to restore an oligarchical regime in which they wielded authority. The bourgeoisie and the middle-class, meanwhile, whose representatives began to be called “patriots”, aspired to play a new role in the regime in line with their actual social importance, both quantitative and qualitative.

The result was that during the months preceding the meeting of the Estates General, a great debate was held on the way in which this event should be organized and administrated. The privileged wanted the meeting to proceed in accordance with the model of its last summoning, which went all the way back to 1614 and the regency of Louis XIII’s mother, Marie de Medicis.^[678] At previous meetings of the Estates General, the three classes (nobility, clergy and the Third Estate) had met separately and had voted by estate, each class assigned one vote.

The debate soon spread to all France thanks to the publication of innumerable pamphlets in which both sides presented their arguments (Margerison 1998). Of all of these one of them soon stood out: “What is the Third Estate?” written by a priest, Abbe Sieyes.^[679] The work would prove pivotal not only for its content, but because it made clear that the “patriots” enjoyed the support of the low clergy, and even of some members of the nobility, such as the Marquis of Lafayette, the hero of the American war; the Count of Mirabeau, one of France’s finest orators who, because of his unconventional lifestyle—gambling debts, scandalous love affairs, quarrels (Zorgbibe 2008)—had been marginalized by the members of his estate; and even Talleyrand, a great nobleman who lost his title because of a lifelong infirmity.^[680]

13.4.2.3 The Defeat of the Privileged

The debate seemed to come to a head in December of 1788, when Necker managed to convince Louis XVI to make a series of concessions,^[681] among them to double the number of representatives assigned to the Third Estate. To do so he employed the argument that it could be dangerous for the monarchy to stand squarely against majority public opinion. This measure constituted a clear defeat for the privileged classes inasmuch as it opened the door to the patriots playing an effective and decisive role in the Estates General.

13.4.2.4 All of France Mobilizes: The Election of Representatives and “Books of Grievances”

The meeting of the first Estates General since 1614 sparked great excitement and expectation, with all of France mobilizing to prepare for the event. In the first months of 1789, the representatives of the three estates began to meet everywhere, especially those from the Third Estate, to elect representatives and draft “books of grievances” (cahiers of doleances) to be presented to the king on behalf of those they represented.

The representatives of all three estates agreed unanimously in their attribution of the nation’s ills to the king’s arbitrary power, and considered it indispensable that it be “confined to its just limits”. All coincided in advocating that the meeting of the Estates General ought to serve to draft a constitution clearly setting down “the rights of the king and of the nation”, as well as a supreme law serving to guarantee “individual freedom”, reduce the powers of the intendants, and establish regular meetings of the provincial estates throughout the kingdom (Shapiro 1998, 257­258).

They were, however, far from being in agreement in regards to a whole series of other questions. For example, the representatives of the nobility and the third state, unlike those from the clergy, generally favored lifting censorship and guaranteeing the freedom of the press. The representatives of the Third Estate, meanwhile, clashed with the nobles and the clergy by defending the principle of equality, while the nobles and clergy only agreed to renounce their fiscal privileges if it did not mean giving up the feudal rights, both honorary and financial, which they enjoyed vis-a-vis the peasants (Markoff 1998, 298-300).

13.4.3 From the Estates General to the Rebellion of the Third- Estate (May 5-June 27,1789)

13.4.3.1 The Great Disappointment

All the high hopes which the representatives had harbored for the Estates General were shattered at the opening ceremony held on May 5, 1789, at which neither Louis XVI nor Necker made any reference whatsoever to the possibility of writing up a constitution, leading the representatives to conclude that the monarch was unwilling to give up his divine right to rule and would not allow constitutional limits to be placed upon his authority.

13.4.3.2 From Voting by Estate to One Man, One Vote

To bend the will of the sovereign and his minister it was necessary for the three estates to unite and act in unison.

The nobles were determined to defend the perpetuation of the traditional practice in which the three classes deliberated separately and voted in blocks as estates.^[682] The clergy was less adamant on this point, with some of its members clearly in favor of accepting the Third Estate’s proposal.^[683] Their flexibility led to what would be a prolonged debate on the issue. As discussions dragged on for more than a month without any agreement being reached, the “patriots”, encouraged by Abbe Sieyes, decided to act unilaterally to secure what they had proposed.

13.4.4 The Rebellion of the Third Estate

13.4.4.1 The “National Assembly” Emerges (June 17)

On June 17, 1789, Sieyes declared that the members of the Third Estate were the true representatives of the nation and not simply a sectional interest, and that, as the nobility claimed prerogatives above the nation, they were not capable of being part of it (Mulholland 2012, 35). The Third Estate concluded that, as they represented 96 % of the nation (Boroumand 1990, 322-3), they alone sufficed to constitute the National Assembly and claim total sovereignty concerning fiscal affairs.^[684] This act had immediate consequences because once the clergy heard of this development they unanimously voted to join the Third Estate, leaving the nobles isolated.^[685]

13.4.4.2 The Tennis Court Oath (June 20)

The attitude of the Third Estate infuriated Louis XVI, who summoned a new session of the Estates General for the sole and express purpose of voiding that agreed to on June 17. To prevent such spontaneous meetings in the future, the monarch also ordered the closing of the chamber in which the sessions had hitherto been held. On the following day the representatives of the Third Estate found the door locked. Rather than abandoning Versailles, however, they chose to occupy a neighboring jeu de paume (a predecessor of tennis) court (Baker 2006, 68-69). Once gathered all those present (except one), presided over by the astronomer Jean- Sylvain Bailly, took an oath in response to a suggestion by Jean Joseph Mounier, not to separate until a constitution had been approved for the kingdom.^[686]

Determined to ignore the unilateral actions of the Third Estate’s representatives, on June 23, the king presided over a new session of the Estates General in which, after announcing some reform measures, he decreed that the June 17 resolution was nullified, and expressed his commitment to fully maintaining “the traditional distinction of the state’s three classes”. When the monarch ordered the representa­tives to depart, however, only those from the clergy and the nobility obeyed him, as those from the Third Estate refused to abandon the chamber. Its spokesman, Bailly, spat at the Marquis of Dreux Breze: “It seems to me that the Nation when assembled cannot be given orders”. The Count of Mirabeau, the only nobleman who had crossed over to the Third Estate, then pronounced -according the most popular version, his famous phrase: “Go tell your lord that we are here by the will of the people and we will not leave except by force of bayonets.^[687]

13.4.4.3 The Constituent Assembly Is Formed (June 27)

The unflinching stand taken by the representatives of the Third Estate bent Louis XVI’s will. On June 27, he agreed to yield and ordered the representatives of the nobility and the clergy to unite with the representatives of the people to form a single assembly in which all individual votes would be counted. The king’s decision was “revolutionary” as it marked the end of the system employed by the Estates General ever since 1302, when it had arisen from a thoroughly feudal society. As this was a development which the representatives wished to make perfectly clear, on that very day they established themselves as a Constituent Assembly and began to discuss the task of drafting a constitution.

The Constituent Assembly held its sessions between June 27, 1789 and September 30, 1791. This period spanning 2 years and 3 months was, without any doubt, the most crucial of the entire Revolutionary era, as during it were adopted the legislative measures^[688] which most contributed to altering France and, with it, the entire western constitutional tradition, forever. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was approved on August 26, 1789.^[689] From the point of view of public order, the years of the Constituent Assembly and those of the Legislative Assembly (1791-1792) were relatively calm (at least compared to the following period, from 1792 to 1794) as, despite the popular rebellions of July 14 and October 6, 1789 the Constituent Assembly managed to maintain public order.

13.4.5 The Two Revolutions

Compared to the American Revolution, the French Revolution was absolutely chaotic. Firstly, this was because of the irresolute king, who constantly vacillated and changed his positions. First, he declared himself to be in favor of the revolu­tionaries, only to later embrace absolutism. His unpredictable announcements were almost invariably ill-timed, which only served to exacerbate the resentments they caused. Secondly, because along with the “bourgeois revolution” of June 1789, that of the “patriots” of the Third Estate, there arose another revolutionary movement led by “popular” elements: the sans culottes?'⁸ The Revolution’s social dimension would be transformed by three decisive events taking place on July 14 and October 6, 1789, and August 10, 1792.^{[690] [691]}

This “new revolution” began on July 14, 1789 with the Storming of the Bastille, the state prison which constituted a symbol of royal tyranny, for in it were confined political prisoners. When it was overrun by the people, however, it was virtually empty, though this did not keep its attackers from beheading its defenders and flaunting their heads, nailed on pikes, throughout Paris. As time went by the event would be idealized until it became a “National Act of Faith”, becoming in the French consciousness a genuine collective event carried out by la Nation (Liisebrink and Reichardt 1997, 212 and 243).

The people took action again on the following 6th of October, when a group of Parisian women forced the royal family to flee from Versailles to Paris, leaving it at the mercy of the mobs. Finally, on August 10, 1792, wild crowds invaded the Tuileries Palace and took the royal family prisoner after massacring the Swiss guard protecting it.^[692] This brutal assault on the royal palace marked the beginning of the revolution’s most radical phase, the “Terror”, during which the revolutionaries decided to abolish monarchy and call for new elections to choose a second constituent assembly: the Convention in what has been called the “Second Revo­lution” (Whaley 1993, 205-224).

13.4.6 From Monarchy to Republic

The confluence of the two revolutions, the bourgeois movement and that driven by the common people, makes the chronology of the “French Revolution” extremely confusing. There were two stages with two different regimes: the first was that of the constitutional monarchy which, in turn, featured two bodies: the Constituent Assembly (1789-1791) and the Legislative Assembly, that ended with the insur­rection of August 10, 1792 (Mitchell 1988). The second stage was that of the First Republic, which began when the king was jailed, tried and guillotined. This second stage was, in turn, also composed of two parts. During the first of these the Constituent Assembly returned, dubbed the “Convention”, lasting from September of 1792 until 1795, followed by a phase known as the “Directory” (1795-1799), during which the Republic was once again controlled by a bourgeois oligarchy.

The fear sown by the violence of the mobs dissuaded most from participating in the elections, which gave rise to the Convention. Since most citizens were fright­ened only the most ardent and extreme revolutionaries ended up voting, yielding a set of representatives more radical than the people (Lucas 1994, 57-79). In addi­tion, this came at a time when two thirds of France was occupied by Prussian and Austrian armies, and only the most radical citizens turned out to vote. The second Constituent Assembly, thus, represented a minority of the French people. Nonethe­less, following a fierce confrontation between political factions (Patrick 1972), the Convention would impose a dictatorship by seizing upon the state of emergency declared because of the war France had been fighting against Austria and Prussia as of April 1792.

Radicalism prevailed between September of 1792 and July of 1794 (Bouloiseau 1983). This was the era of sweeping and ambitious attacks against Christianity, with the civil constitution of the clergy, the revolutionary calendar, the worship of the Supreme Being (Tallet 1991, 1-28),^[693] the mass executions of the Terror, and the dictatorship of the Committee of Public Safety.^[694] In reality, the second Constitution of Revolutionary France, that of 1793, was not at all representative of French society at the time, which explains why the Revolution degenerated into civil war during the Terror (Andress 2005) with the uprising of the royalists in Vendee and the harsh repression of the Republican army, in what it became a “total war”,^[695] leading to the ultimate failure of revolutionary radicalism.

For all these reasons, from 1789 to 1799, France was sunk in chaos, seeing a Constituent Assembly, followed by a constitutional monarchy, a republic, a radical dictatorship and, finally, a bourgeois republic simultaneously threatened by right­wing “realists” (monarchists) and left-wing Jacobins. Three formal constitutions were adopted, in 1791, 1793 and 1795, none of which endured. They either proved unviable, as was the case with that from 1791; were suspended because of a state of emergency, as occurred in 1793; or the regime needed the support of the army to stay in power, and suffered a series of annual coup d'etats. Such was the case with the 1795 constitution and the “Directory”, attacked on the left by radical republican Jacobins, and on the right by those in favor of a return to monarchy as the new regime suffered from a crisis of republican legitimacy (Brown 2006, 23-46).^[696]

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